Moscow: In the latest step in a ruthless crackdown on dissent in Russia that has reached previously unheard-of levels since the start of the war in Ukraine, a Russian court on Friday ordered pretrial detention for a theatre director and a playwright accused of defending terrorism.
Zhenya Berkovich, a well-known independent theatre director, and Svetlana Petriychuk, a playwright, were imprisoned for two months by the Zamoskvoretsky District Court in Moscow pending an investigation and trial. Due to the play "Finist, the Brave Falcon" that Petriychuk and Berkovich wrote and staged, the two were detained in the Russian capital on Thursday. Additionally, police searched Berkovich's grandmother's and parents' St. Petersburg apartments.
The play, which takes its title from a Russian fairy tale, is about Russian women who were prosecuted after being seduced by radical Islamists into marriage and a life in Syria.
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Authorities claim that the play condones terrorism, but both Berkovich and Petriychuk have refuted this claim and maintained their innocence.
In court on Friday, Yulia Tregubova, the attorney for Berkovich, noted that the play had received funding from the Russian Ministry of Culture and had won the Golden Mask Award, the country's highest honour in national theatre. The play was read to inmates of a women's prison in Siberia in 2019, according to Petriychuk's attorney Sergei Badamshin, who also claimed that Russia's state penitentiary service had praised the play on its website.
In Russia, defending terrorism is a crime that carries a seven-year prison sentence.
Outrage was expressed in Russia over the Berkovich and Petriychuk case. More than 3,400 people had endorsed an open letter in support of the two artists that was started by the independent Novaya Gazeta newspaper by Friday night. In the letter, it was claimed that the play "carries an absolutely clear anti-terrorist sentiment."
The court should release Berkovich from custody while an investigation and trial are ongoing, according to affidavits signed by dozens of Russian actors, directors, and journalists.
The Kremlin unleashed a massive campaign of repression unmatched since the Soviet era as soon as Russia began its full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It has effectively made any criticism of the war illegal, with the authorities targeting anyone who spoke out against it, whether publicly or privately, as well as well-known opposition figures who eventually received harsh prison sentences.
Additionally, there was increasing pressure on Russian critics. State-run theatres fired actors and directors, and musicians were prohibited from playing there.
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Some were given the "foreign agent" moniker, which attracts increased government scrutiny and has very negative connotations. Many departed Russia.
The mother of two adopted daughters, Berkovich has resisted leaving Russia and has continued to work on her Soso's Daughters independent theatre production in Moscow. She organised an anti-war picket shortly after the conflict in Ukraine began, for which she received an 11-day sentence